


Predictable

by HWYL



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:00:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26263060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HWYL/pseuds/HWYL
Summary: McCoy’s bantering with Spock is a familiar verbal dance. Predictable. McCoy thinks he should throw in a new step. So he flirts a little, because why the hell not? The worst that could happen is a punch in the face.Spock doesn’t punch him in the face. Instead, a flush of green stains his cheeks, and the tips of his ears.Well, isn’t that fascinating.
Relationships: Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock
Comments: 8
Kudos: 176





	Predictable

Spock is damn predictable, and the only thing McCoy can say in favour of that is that it means his amassed stock of complaints and petty insults are consistently valid. And recyclable, which he would argue is a desireable quality of anything to be had in a starship.

It’s also infurating, because McCoy knows the very predictability that makes Spock a reliable First Officer and methodical scientist, is the same predictability that will never cease to drive McCoy relentlessly insane.

McCoy can see it now. It hasn’t happened yet, but it will. McCoy will be on his way to visit Jim after an aggravating shift, to complain and unwind in the face of Jim’s relentless and reckless optimism. He’ll aim to tell Jim he doesn’t give a shit if the glass is half empty or half full, just as along as it holds bourbon. He’ll pass Spock in the corridor—either before or after, it doesn’t matter, it’s bound to happen sometime, an inevitability all officers being on the same residential deck—and the bastard will say something insufferable to make McCoy decided that actually, it _does_ matter that his glass of bourbon was half empty, thank you very much. It’ll be something barbarous and haughty, designed to personally undermine McCoy’s competency and very validity on this starship, and even though McCoy knows Spock is full of shit, he knows it’ll get to him anyway.

Just another day in this tin can, hanging in the void of a whole lotta nothing.

Predictable.

~~~

McCoy’s guess wasn’t accurate in every particular—he’s a doctor, dammit, not a prophet—but it’s close enough to give him a sinking feeling of inevitability when at his departure from Lab C, on his return to Medbay, he sees his trajectory is going to make him cross paths with the First Officer. McCoy wishes he had a strengthing glass of bourbon, whether half empty or not.

Spock is going to say something covertly barbarous. McCoy just knows it. Or, maybe Spock will just ignore him, as if the doctor is an ensign not worth his time or acknowledgement. McCoy doesn’t know which would be worse.Even while a small voice of rationality tells him he’s already condemned Spock for either option, the stronger and more petulant part of him asserts that Spock can choose neither one if McCoy gets a barb in first.

“Spock,” he starts as they grow nearer, “What a pleasant surprise, as always. It’s always encouraging to see such smiling optimism during a shift.”

Spock stops. He looks at him with a silent raise of one patronising eyebrow.

Predictable.

“There it is,” McCoy affirms, reaching Spock. “That Vulcan sunshine. Have an excellent day.”

He is barely two strides past Spock when the reply stops him, “Doctor, your inability to identify optimism—while unsurpising, in light of your own dissentious nature—is nonetheless a concerning defect in a medical professional. You diagnose mental states also, do you not?”

McCoy turns.

“You require a diagnosis of your mental state?” He takes a step toward Spock and adds, “You’re in the wrong place, then. You’ll want Engineering—Mr Scott’s the one to see for misfiring circuitry.”

“Your lack of refutation and subsequent misdirection implies you recognise an uncomfortable truth and thus that my judgement is valid.”

Predictable.

“What it implies,” McCoy retorts, “is that your pompous Vulcan face doesn’t know what it’s talking about.”

“An illogical deduction,” Spock fires back immediately, with irritating calm. “As I have come to expect from you, Doctor. You have proven to be uniquely qualified in such absurdities, so I calculate a satisfactory exchange with you to be a statistical impossiblity.”

It’s a verbal dance, McCoy thinks. Always this. So damn predictable. He should change it up a bit, throw in a new step, because why the hell not? A bit of shock or surprise might do a Vulcan good. A smile pulls at the edge of McCoy’s mouth and he leans in to Spock, much closer than intimidation would conventionally require, and says in a low purr, “You’d be surprised...”

If he’d tried that on with a human, he expects he’d have been punched in the face.

Spock doesn’t punch him in the face. He doesn’t rise to the bait, either. There are no further insults or returned quips, and when McCoy moves back, he sees no brow arched in incredulity. Instead, he sees a flush of green staining Spock’s cheeks, and the tips of his ears.

_Well, isn’t that fascinating._

He counts it a win, and strides onward to the Medbay in victory, throwing a parting quip over his shoulder. “My dissentious nature is uniquely qualified to diagnose your bullshit.”

~~~

If Doctor McCoy were a paranoid man, he’d think Spock is avoiding him now. But McCoy is the among the best medically analytical minds of Starfleet, so whether he can be accused of paranoia or not, he knows that’s exactly what Spock’s doing, dammit.

McCoy is still approaching Jim’s table in the cafeteria when Spock smoothly rises from the captain’s side, murmering something McCoy’s unable to catch before Spock is moving swiftly past him and out of the room. Bastard didn’t even look at him.

McCoy smacks his tray on the table and drops himself to the chair opposite Jim. “He seems to be in a hurry.”

Jim blinks. “If that’s what hurrying looks like on Spock.”

McCoy takes a bite of his bread roll. The replicators always make them too dry. It rolls around his mouth like bundled sawdust before he washes it down with a gulp from his water glass. “What did he say, when he left? Some desperate experiment he needs to check on, I suppose?”

“He didn’t say where he was going.”

McCoy pauses in his chewing. “What _did_ he say?”

“Why does it matter?” Jim asks.

“It doesn’t. He’s a boring logical man, he probably likes boring logical places. He just... I dunno.” McCoy stabs at his salad. “... He looked suspicious.”

Jim chuckles. “If you thought he was boring, you wouldn’t spend so much time trying to piss him off. It’s your favourite game. Besides, what would suspicious even look like, on Spock?”

“It looks... furtive. He doesn’t look at you.”

Jim frowns. “But he _was_ looking at me.” Then his frown clears, and he smiles. “Ah. He wasn’t looking at _you._ And you didn’t like it.”

“That’s _not_ what I meant, dammit!” McCoy splutters. “Just, a man has a right to be suspicious when another man won’t look him in the eye!”

“Wait, which one of you is suspicious?”

“Shut up and eat your bad nutritional decisions.”

Jim doesn’t say another word, but his amused eyes are still much too loud.

~~~

McCoy toes his boots off and sits heavily on the side of his bed. His feet ache from the prolongued standing that took up a large part of his latest shift, but medical supply stocktaking isn’t a job one can do from a desk. He knows he could have got an ensign to perform the administrative task, but McCoy had wanted something mundane to settle his preoccupied mind. And yet, he still thinks of green flushes.

“Computer, where’s Spock?” McCoy doesn’t have a reason to make the enquiry so late, when both their shifts are finished, but he just wants to _know_ , and the computer won’t question his motives for asking.

When the computer tells him that Spock is in Geology Lab B, McCoy doesn’t question his own motives either, as he roughly pulls his boots back on and makes his way in its direction.

None of the people he passes on the way to the lab question what he’s doing. One of the benefits of his rank. The double stripes on his cuffs tell them it’s none of their business.

Of course, the frown might be putting them off, too. He tries to smooth his forehead, because he doesn’t want to make Spock immediately defensive. That would make him even more tight-lipped, and McCoy wants answers. He wants to know what Spock had meant by flushing so prettily. He wants to know why Spock dares to ignore him now. Mostly, perhaps, he wants to see that green flush again. He tries to relax his face, moments before the lab doors open with a soft shush.

Spock is immediately defensive. McCoy can see it in the tightening of Spock’s shoulders.

“Doctor.” Spock stands stiffly, watching McCoy.

Best to get right to the point, then. “You’re avoiding me.” Still standing in the doorway, McCoy waits for the denial or diversion he’s sure is coming.

A beat. Then, “Indeed.”

Well, that was unexpected. Unpredictable.

McCoy considers what happened last time he tried to be unpredictable, and his heartbeat thumps at his ribs. But he doesn’t want to think, now. Doesn’t want to question his motives. Doing that—thinking, questioning—would stop this snowball of a bad idea from its thrilling decent. Spock would have done enough analytical thinking for the both of them, anyway, he’s sure. Whereas, McCoy is a man of base impulse.

And yet Spock doesn’t stop him from moving closer. He doesn’t stop him from stepping around tables. From coming to a stop right in front of Spock. Close enough to touch, if he dared.

Spock only watches.

McCoy takes a breath. When he speaks, his voice is a low murmur, rough at the edges. “I don’t like it.”

There it is. That captivating green flush. Standing this close, McCoy can see Spock swallow.

“That is unfortunate,” Spock says. He clasps his hands behind him. His voice is strained. “However, I must ask that you allow it.”

McCoy folds his arms. “Why?”

A pause. “I find myself disinterested to continue our childish games.” Another swallow. “We are Starfleet officers, and should conduct ourselves accordingly.”

Oh, there are so many things McCoy could say, to that. Each possible response wars for the chance to be said. Spock confesses to engage in childishness? He admits to playing games? He concedes McCoy is a legitimate medical officer, rather than a man only in Starfleet by administrative error?

But McCoy doesn’t say any of those things. The game is different. The rules have changed. He unfolds his arms, dropping his hands to his sides, and moves half a step closer.

“I don’t find myself disinterested.” McCoy whispers. He thinks there is no game, and there are no rules. “I find myself very interested.”

Spock doesn’t push McCoy away, but his hands fall readily to his sides. “Please, Doctor, desist—”

“I’m not talking about the games.” He’s close enough to feel Spock’s breath, now. Small, warm, measured huffs of understated Vulcan panic. McCoy’s keen medical mind is making correlations and connections, and he thinks if he lifts his hand to Spock’s waist, he would feel a thundering heartbeat, belying the stillness of Spock’s frame and adding more evidence to his hypothesis. But he keeps his hands at his sides.

Spock remains silent.

“Medically speaking,” McCoy says, quietly, “the body only detects _changes_ in physical sensation. If a person is submerged in water the same temperature as themselves, they can only feel it when it moves, or when they do. As soon as there is no movement, sensation is gone. Where there’s no difference or change in an environment, there’s no sensation of it.”

He pauses for a beat, as if waiting for something, then continues, “You are a touch telepath. And despite what your robot face would have us all believe, I suspect you feel just as strongly as the rest of us. So that brings me to just one question…”

The measured breaths stop.

“ … Do you think the reason you haven’t noticed I’m touching you right now,” McCoy says, “is because there’s no discernable difference between your feelings and mine? Or do you have another theory you’d like to share?”

It’s definately surprise he sees on Spock’s face. The eyes widen before their gaze drops. McCoy already knows what they’ll see. He can still feel the warmth at his left hand, where the soft pads of his own fingertips gently rest against Spock’s.

Spock remains silent, and McCoy hopes it’s only out of prolongued suprise. If he got this wrong, then he’s messed up way beyond a point of salvation. But he’s still not thinking, not questioning. He’s running on base impulse and blind hope.

If he thinks, he’ll panic.

He places his other hand at Spock’s side, just under his ribs, where indeed, a rapid thumping rolls under his palm. It strengthen his hypothesis, and gives him confidence. “I hypothesise, then,” McCoy continues, “that a lack of sensation to a touch telepath would indicate a matched state of thought, and thus indicate that we are, neither of us, playing a game.”

All evidence his human psi-null state is aware of, supports his case. And yet, Spock’s silence pulls at the edges of McCoy’s panic, and frays his confidence. In moments, he could be experiencing the greatest humiliation of his life. Or at least, it’ll feel that way before he drowns all feeling in bourbon, and fantasises about putting in a transfer request to some starbase on a distant planet. One in another universe, preferably.

“For God’s sake, Spock,” he says, and his voice almost splinters under the tension. “Say something.”

When Spock speaks, the words are slow and measured. “Your hypothesis has merit, on the basis of medical and physiological argument. However...” He pauses, and McCoy’s throat feels like it closes. He finds it hard to breath. Spock is dragging this out, and it’s cruel. Put a man out of his misery, dammit. “... It has not been tested. And an untested hypothesis is no more than a wild guess.”

A wild guess.

‘Wild’ is probably an appropriate term to put to whatever impulse was to blame for sending McCoy in here in the first place. Now those wild impulses want to throw him out of the nearest airlock.

McCoy floods with shame and embarrassment. He moves his hands away from Spock, but whip-quick he finds his wrist locked in the strength of a Vulcan grip.

“Let me go,” McCoy scowls. “Or I’ll test a new hypothesis right across your face.” It doesn’t make sense. He knows it doesn’t. But it communicates a threat, and he thinks that’s the best he can do in this state of captured panic.

“Forgive me, Doctor,” Spock says. “But I had to test it, on your behalf. And it has proven valid.”

McCoy blinks. “Vulcan, you’d better explain yourself right now or let me the hell go—”

“I needed to change the conditions,” Spock says. “If there was a change in your own emotional sensations, I would become aware of it … which would indicate there had indeed been an equilibrium in its previous state.”

Spock relaxes his grasp, and McCoy wrenches his hand free. “So you humiliated me on purpose, you bastard,” he growls. “And how does my embarrassment feel to you, then? Cozy? Balmy? Satisfying?”

“Adequately satisfying,” Spock says, “but only for what it tells me. It was as unpleasurable as my regret that you had to feel it all.”

“Pretty damn unpleasurable, yeah. Rather like anything you send my way.”

Spock holds his gaze for a moment, before saying in a low murmer, “You would be surprised.”

McCoy feels his own brow fly upward, and he sees an answering tinge of green flush atop Spock’s cheeks.

“I think I just was.” McCoy blinks. “So … you gonna keep avoiding me, now?”

“Unlikely.”

“Fantastic.”

“I am gratified to hear it.”

McCoy still feels his heart pounding, but the urge to fling himself into space is gone. As is the urge to leave at all.

“Well,” he starts, “I don’t have your telepathic hoodoo, so if you expect me to know anything going on in that Vulcan head of yours, you’re gonna have to use words for it.”

Spock inclines his head. “Very well. Then I shall say that engaging your ire has been ultimately captivating to me for having engaged your attention. And I shall add that I would be pleased to experience your attention in a less … hostile manner.”

McCoy smirks. “And by ‘less hostile’, you mean ‘concupiscent.’” He thinks he may have seen the edge of Spock’s mouth twitch upward, then. A complement to that delicate green flush.

“If you would be amenable,” Spock says, after a pause.

McCoy can’t help his smirk from stretching into a smile, and he reaches out to meet Spock’s fingertips with his own. “Okay, then. Tell me what ‘Pretty damn amenable’ feels like.”

He think it feels a lot like flying out of the nearest airlock, but in all the best ways.

Spock is damn predictable, and the only thing McCoy can say in favour of that is that it means after a heavy day he can rely on the First Officer to be waiting for him at the end of it, with Vulcan optimism and a glass of bourbon. Half full, thank you very much.


End file.
